Clan Hay Stories

Every month we choose a clan to celebrate, we highlight their history, castles, famous faces and an interview or two with interesting people from the clan or society. As part of our celebration we always ask clan members to share their stories with us too as we love hearing more about the lives of the modern day clan. This month we are delighted to share the story of Clan Hay.

Eildon Glow by David Hay

I have always been aware of being Scottish. My parents, particularly my mother, were staunch Scots and one of my mother’s proudest moments was when at school she won first prize for her poem in a Burns Society competition. Her love of Scotland was infectious. As a family growing up we were also made aware of being Hays. We were told of connections to the north east but being lowlanders my parents always hung onto claims of a strong clan presence in Berwickshire. Later in life I was very pleased to exhibit my paintings in several exhibitions hosted by the Hay family in Duns Castle.

I have always appreciated the beauty of the Scottish landscape. As a young boy I was taken on many camping trips by my parents and I vividly remember driving over Rannoch Moor and camping in Glen Coe. The grandeur and atmosphere of the place was breathtaking and never to be forgotten.

Perhaps my love of the Scottish landscape would have lead me into painting but I know exactly when I decided to be an artist. I was a young schoolboy in the 1960s at Dalkeith High School and privileged to be taught art by an excellent group of teachers lead by the late Willie Watson. My class were taken by the Art Department to see an exhibition in the RSA of the work of Chaim Soutine. I remember standing there in front of his paintings and thinking “ I want to do this”. Because I was showing an interest in painting I was invited to join other pupils from the school to paint during Easter and summer holidays on Tiree in the Inner Hebrides. We camped on the beaches and painted all day long. I felt I was living the life of an artist. The visit to the RSA was followed a few years later by a visit to Edinburgh College of Art where the Diploma Exhibitions were showing. My ambition to become a painter was further strengthened as I experienced works by very talented students including John Bellany and Sandy Moffat both of whom later became established as important Scottish artists. I applied for entry to the college that year and was fortunate to be accepted. My time there was wonderful. My tutors included the leading Scottish painters William Gillies, Robin Philipson, John Houston and Elizabeth Blackadder. All of whom were a huge influence.

My wife and I live in the Borders village of Yetholm. The surrounding landscape from the Bowmont Valley out to the Berwickshire coast is of great importance to my work. I find most if not all of my subject matter there and I continue to paint it every day. I love it!

As a child, growing up in Liverpool, I was told by my father that our family was linked to Clan Hay of Scotland. It did not mean a great deal to me at the time but I knew it was important to him. We visited Scotland for holidays and he was always looking for links to the Hays. His sister told me that he went as often as possible to Perth as he was sure we had links there and she told me that the family was distantly related to the Earls of Kinnoull. My father left home when I was ten years old to go back to sea. He had been a mariner before he married. The night before he left he told my sister and I that he was going but not that he would not be coming back. We saw little of him after that so perhaps when I started to trace our family I was looking for roots.

I remembered that he had told me about a letter his father had received in the 1930s. It came from a solicitor in London and asked him to go to their office. It mentioned an inheritance but also mentioned death duties. He was in no position to go to London from Liverpool and was afraid that he might be asked to pay death duties which he could not do so he threw the letter on the fire. Both my father and his sister told this story. His sister was the eldest and remembered it happening.

With the help of technology and improved transport, I was able to do research which my father could never have hoped to do. Starting with family members I knew, I began to build my tree. I fully expected to find ancestors in Scotland within two or at most three generations. This was not to be and having found that my great- great grandfather, George Hay, was born in Warrington before coming with his parents to Liverpool where he became a tobacco manufacturer, I was very surprised. George’s father was William Hay and he was a staymaker born in 1763 and it was he who travelled down from Scotland .The further back you go, the thinner the records are, and it was really a case of dedicated searching which led me to discover that we were, in fact, descended from the Hays of Murie who in turn descended from the Hays of Megginch.

The first Earl of Kinnoull was a brother of Patrick, 5^thof Megginch. Having discovered during my searching that there is a Clan Hay Society, I simply had to join. The Clan’s annual gathering is always at the Aboyne Games so I went along and began to get involved. Living in Liverpool made communications and event planning tricky so my husband and I decided that when we retired we would move to Scotland, to the Banchory/Aboyne area. When the time came, we wanted to be in Scotland so that we could view properties and the Chief, The Earl of Erroll, kindly permitted us to rent his house at Slains which sits behind the ruins of Old Slains Castle. Each day I looked at the castle and wondered about the people who had lived there and why, when the 9^th Earl had to flee the country, his wife did not go with him. It was questions like these which inspired me to write, “The Hays of Slains Castle”.

The book is based on fact and tells of the lives and adventures of the Hays who lived there from the time when it was given to Gilbert Hay by Robert the Bruce after Bannockburn until the time that it was blown up. Gilbert was also confirmed as Lord High Constable of Scotland; a title which is hereditary and is still held by the current Chief.The story is used to weave together the facts which, due to the importance of the Clan, are numerous, including the fact that my ancestor held the then Chief captive in his own dungeon at Slains Castle. Thankfully the present Chief, the Earl of Erroll, does not hold it against me!Research and writing took two years and I am very grateful to Alan Hay our Clan Archivist for his help and incredible knowledge about the history of Clan Hay. Thanks also to my neighbour, Wendy Harmon, who designed and painted the cover picture.